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perhappened mag
issue 1: CARNIVAL

now the horses have all gone

SY BRAND
There’s an empty space
in my carousel. A mare,
cracked mane, chipped paint, 
              Sarah 
               <3s 
              ​Asha 
carved into her seat 
flew off in the night.

A note: “No more kid-after-kid,
the same music
against a new skyline, I’ve left
to be a rocking horse for the boy
who was 10p short
of crossing the railing, his knuckles
unwhitening. Please forget me.”

The next night, another. He always wanted
to be a racehorse: his name up in chalk,
the crash of a hedge catching
at unglued hooves.

Dreams of farmyards, tourist beachrides,
coarse hairbrush in riding stables,
cotton candy hands sticking 
to someone else’s shoulder.

Now the horses have all gone.

All I have are empty poles, ghosts
of laughter, organ grinding
for not a soul.

Sy is a queer non-binary person living in Edinburgh, Scotland. They write through the haze of cat-/child-induced sleep deprivation to try and make sense of gender, relationships, and ADHD. You can find them on Twitter @TartanLlama and their publications at sybrand.ink.
perhappened mag
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header photo: claudio buttler (unsplash)


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